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My, Jim Thorpe looks so clean, prosperous...productive. These days it's one of those "quaint" tourist towns--mountain bikers doing the Lehigh River gorge in the summer and skiers doing the local trails in the winter. For those who actually live there, life is pretty depressing in Carbon County.

I live about thirty miles away in Nazareth. We pronounce Jim Thorpe's former name as "Maw Chunk".

From the local history website: "During its golden era in the late 1800s the town was known as the wealthiest town - per capita - in America. The industry of tourism grew in importance alongside coal and railroads, and Mauch Chunk boasted seven grand hotels to handle all the visitors. Mauch Chunk became a tourist destination second only to Niagara Falls." It's a wonderful little town to visit during the summer or around Christmas. All you sports fans need to ensure you visit Jim Thorpe's grave site on Hwy. 903.

Congratulations on your Edward Hopper reference in the caption. A number of Shorpy commenters have invoked Hopper when the photo in question shows a solitary figure in a window or at a table. Hopper lovers know that it's all about the light.

The jail in town is the home of the handprint that can't be removed. When some of the Molly Maguires, Irish miners, were hanged there in 1877 one of the condemned placed his handprint on the wall and stated that as proof of his innocence it could never be removed. It's still there today after many paint coverings of the area.

Jim Thorpe was a town dependent on (anthracite) coal and the railroad. Like other towns in Pennsylvania, it went through a period of decline when those two industries took a nose dive. Since then it's dusted itself off and is today a charming and friendly little town to visit. By the way my family pronounced it "munk chunk" although people in parts of Pennsylvania have some peculiar language variations.

Great photo by the way. During its coal dust and sooty past the street could've been as gray as seen in the photograph!

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo archive featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1960s. (Available as fine-art prints from the Shorpy Archive.) The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.